Metallica’s Lars Ulrich talks about Grammys sound glitch, getting Lady Gaga to perform

“The ensuing chaos and energy and complete over-the-top excitement, including Gaga basically in my lap as we were playing, it was absolutely awesome,” Lars Ulrich said on LA Daily.

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SiriusXM Editor
February 14, 2017

Lady Gaga, right, and James Hetfield of “Metallica” perform “Moth Into Flame” at the 59th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Lady Gaga‘s channeling her inner rock goddess like never before, so it made sense for her to join Metallica on stage during Sunday’s Grammys.

What didn’t resonate with viewers? The heavy metal band’s lead singer James Hetfield’s mic not working at the beginning of the fiery performance, a glitch he solved by moving to join the Mother Monster at hers.

Drummer Lars Ulrich explained why the sound issue took a while to solve during an interview with LA Daily.

“When it’s technical, you don’t know, ‘Wait, is it just in our ears up on stage?'” he said. “You don’t know where in the chain of possible mishaps it is, so a couple people were like, ‘Well why didn’t you stop and start the song over?’ We didn’t know if there was a problem. It could have worked fine out in the truck that was going to television and it was just up on stage. You never know, so you have no choice than to just carry on. But the ensuing chaos and energy and complete over-the-top excitement, including Gaga basically in my lap as we were playing, it was absolutely awesome.”

Ulrich also revealed that he personally approached Gaga about the collaboration when they fortuitously sat next to each other at a dinner party.

“I was like, ‘You know, she’s sort of a metal chick at heart and has a reputation for sort of growing up in that Jersey, New York sort of metal scene and has a reputation as being super easy and cool. And I just threw it at her,” he said. “That took all of two bites of whatever salad we were having at the time during dinner to finalize. So it came together super organic, really quick. There wasn’t 500 lawyers and strategists and producers and teams and managers sending emails back and forth for days. She’s very sort of autonomous and independent and she makes her own decisions. The coolest, sweetest, most easy-going person you’ll ever meet. Not a trace of ego or anything. And we just sealed it right there and then we went on our little journey, and it’s been a lot of fun.”

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(Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

 



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